Berserkers of Uran
Officer: "Death cures all pain." Legionaries: "Angels will destroy the skies. - Berserkers of Uran battle-cry Even prior to the onset of the Insurrection, the Berserkers were a divisive and hateful assembly. The battle-axe of the Crusade, the Berserkers' combination of massed assaults at near-legion strength and absolute ignorance of the concept of "collateral damage" made even members of their own Legion hate them. Members of the Legion's pre-reunification forces, named Eden's Shepherds, split from Raktra's rule many years prior to the Berserker's betrayal of the Imperium. This in itself put the Berserkers on the very edge of Imperial tolerance, but the public execution of their appointed Chaplains and participation in Icarion's assaults against Imperial worlds forced the Warmaster himself to demand their destruction. Few foes are more dangerous than the Legions, and fewer still more than a Legion that can see every last weakness you possess. Origins and History While some among the Traitors once showed faultless loyalty to the Imperium and its ideals, there are those of whom it is hard to believe that they were ever loyal. The Berserkers of Uran were ever a hateful and divisive assembly, from the day their Primarch Raktra began to fashion a Legion in his image. What he created was an army based on savage discipline which cared nothing for hardship and recognised no limit to the violence it would commit for victory. The Emperor’s monsters they became, recognising only the authority of those stronger than them. But now their ferocity found a new target; the Imperium that had held their leash. 'Knights of the Dawn' The VIIth Legion was born to a nobility which few would now associate with them. In this, they shared a peculiar kinship with the IVth. Raised from the city-states of Europa, they were imbued with the ideals of Unity and quickly earned a reputation for their strict code of honour, even in the barbarous fighting of the Unification Wars. From their first independent campaigns in Gyptus, they showed a commitment to striking their foes in a way which would minimise collateral damage, both among their own side and the enemy’s. As they saw it, they were made to liberate Mankind. No man chose to be born into Kalagann’s realm or the Saumar cult-lands, and if saved from such tyrants, they might make eager servants for the Imperium. So they prosecuted their first full-scale campaigns in Gyptus with this goal foremost in their minds, displaying all the discipline and skill expected of them, and something that perhaps had not been expected before the Legion was assembled. During the final stages of Ascension and training, neophytes reported a peculiar phenomenon, involuntary to start with but later controllable. They were able to see into a person’s body, picking out weaknesses that might be invisible to any other warrior. A warrior of the VIIth could see the evidence of old wounds and broken bones, and thus know how to swiftly overwhelm his opponent. With this ability, dubbed the Somoptis by the biologist Rafaid Aslamaia, they could fell the deadliest of the gene-wrought monsters they faced. In Nordafrik they led the charge against the armies of Ursh, wiping out the Tupelov Lancers and driving the dreaded Red Engines from the field. The enslaved denizens of the old conclaves hailed them as liberators, seeing something in them that suggested the oasis they had once lived in. It seems the Emperor’s mortal soldiers took a liking to this, and over the years this became a moniker for the Legion. By the time they crossed Sud Merica with the VIth decades later and joined the war upon the Pan-Pacific, the VIIth had become the Shepherds of Eden. To a great extent, they drew on the medieval cultures of Old Earth, prioritising speed and mobility but also preferring to close with the foe, the better to exploit their gifts in the melee. Frequently, they would launch charges of skyhunter squadrons against the weak points of an enemy formation before following with their full mechanised power, delivering their warriors to the heart of the battle. Their compassion for the mortal soldiers earned them high regard. The Shepherds asked much of the Army and Auxilia forces who fought with them, but would always place themselves where the fighting was hardest. They saw the weaknesses that a mortal soldier carried, saw his fragility and how he still braved the horrors of war, and where some Legions were indifferent this moved them to sympathy and respect for their lesser comrades. While eclipsed by the Legions whose Primarchs already fought with them, the Shepherds carved out an enviable record as they brought the Imperial Truth to lost worlds and cast down alien empires. They, along with the Morning Stars, exuded a quiet pride in their achievements as “orphans”, whilst still dreaming of what they might accomplish when their gene-sire was found. No one expected that he would be anything but the mirror of his sons. To speak of unpleasant surprises, then, is to deal in profound understatement. 'The Gift of the Pit' The prisons of the Imperium are, as with so much else, numerous enough to defeat any attempt at counting them. Some were torn down and their inhabitants freed by the Emperor’s soldiers, while others were filled anew with the enemies of the Imperium. Many became great warehouses of manpower, whose inmates would be taken away to serve sentences on mining worlds or in penal regiments while the worst were processed into servitors. A few were known widely for their sturdiness, the nature of the criminals they held and the brutality with which these were kept in check. Yet it is unlikely that any were the equal of Uran. Serving a small empire in a less enlightened backwater of the Galaxy, Uran was once a world where the condemned were placed to find some utility, criss-crossing the planet’s crust with excavations much as Cthonia was, albeit not so far along the same trajectory. Foundries were raised and mighty forge-satellites constructed in orbit; the prisoners on the surface were to be kept far away from the weapons their labour created. Simply running the planet demanded colossal supplies of manpower, and six hive cities grew up, populated by the soldiers and civil officers who governed the world and those prisoners deemed suitable to serve their needs. The rest inhabited seven great catacomb-cities, built around clusters of mines, agri-chambers and other places where they might be made useful. As the Age of Strife reached its crescendo, however, creatures of a strange and macabre nature appeared. Resembling a twisted mockery of mythical angels, they tormented the populace in growing swarms. The skies became perilous, forcing the rulers of the world to heavily arm the conveyors which ferried Uran's wares offworld. The empire, rife with internecine disputes, would brook no loss of productivity, and finally the foundries were moved into the catacomb cities, accompanied by an increasingly heavy military presence to deter any attempts to take the weapons. This was not always successful, and savage battles were fought in the dark, often ended with culls. The overseers of Uran became an ugly mirror to the prisoners they managed, cruel and yet wracked with fear of the Angels who claimed their skies. Gangs emerged from the inmates, often grouped together according to their “profession”. Where once some efforts had been made to ensure that the prisoners served only the years of their sentence, now to be cast into the warrens was a sentence imposed on the descendants of the condemned. Arboreta and agri-chambers were replaced with reclamation plants, which took the place of burial or cremation. Gangs became clans, warring with each other for dominance beyond the sight of the hive armies. They grew bolder and stronger as they wrested weapons from unwary guards. In other cases, guards “went feral” and these too fed the ranks of the gangers. Finally first in one prison and then the others, armouries were breached and ransacked. The gaolers retrieved what they could from the prisons, but within a few months of the first breach they had been driven out or killed, and the hives were forced to fend off the Angels with their own toil and blood. The catacombs knew little of the Angels beyond the few that penetrated the tunnels and wreaked bloody violence until they were glutted or killed, for the surface-dwellers had taken care to destroy the conveyors which had been the only point of access into the prisons. Archeotech devices lurked in the very soil, waiting to kill anyone foolish enough to try and dig for the surface. Besides, the gangers were more interested in dominance within their subterranean world. Into this cauldron of violence came a Primarch, his incubation pod tearing through the earth to rest within the largest of the prison complexes. Wandering the tunnels, he was found after an unknown length of time by one of the most powerful gangs, known as the Architects. From them he learned what it was to lead, and the myriad methods of killing practiced in the tunnels. They also gave him the name which would echo through the Galaxy in years to come - Raktra Akarro. Soon, he was the strongest man ever known to roam the tunnels, strong enough to slay any opponent he faced and gifted with the ability to find weakness wherever it might exist. His kills were not just men and women, but feral animals and the Angels which occasionally made their way into the depths. With Raktra fighting amongst them, the Architects grew strong, breaking the gangs with whom they vied for territory. Often a clan would pledge allegiance when Raktra slew their leaders. It was a custom among all the gangs to burn one’s slain foes and wear their ashes. Even before he was fully grown, Raktra’s skin was stained a dirty white by the remains of his vanquished enemies. Soon, the entire complex lay under his control, Raktra having attained absolute control of his gang and the rest through fear, his natural authority and sheer violence. He had grown up hearing of other warrens and the hive-dwellers who set themselves up - in the tales of the gangers, at least - as the rulers of the world, casting others into the pit to achieve that end. Whether he saw a grievance to be redressed is debatable. Certainly he took exception to anyone but himself dominating Uran, and resolved to expand his power further. He set the population to tunnelling, forcing a unified effort to reach the other warrens as no tyrant before him had. When another complex was reached he would lead his followers into it. The gangs they found were as divided as those Raktra had first known, and they fell easily. Over three decades Raktra expanded and defended his power, fanning the fires of industry even as he fended off challengers. Whispers, brought back by the garrisons watching the pits, began to circulate in the hives. They told of a white devil that lurked in the bowels of the world. Few believed them at first, but Raktra had long since resolved to show the surface-dwellers the truth of those words. He mounted raids to the surface, seeking engineers to perfect the tunneling machinery the gangs used, and avenues of attack which he might exploit to invade the cities. Crude power armour was created in the forges, accompanied by weapons often adapted from mining tools. Thus Raktra equipped himself and his followers, and they struck the first city. The war that followed raged for six years, Raktra subjugating each city in turn and finding new weapons for his use. He became a figure of terror, but on a world long resigned to fear, that only added to his grim authority. Uran’s people had long ago shed any illusions about siding with the strong, and Raktra demonstrated his potency in ways that left no room for doubt. Oppression and violence were ubiquitous and dissent met with a hammer, fist, blade or bullet. Yet Raktra was unsatisfied, for still he was not entirely the world’s master. The angels still tormented the people, forcing Raktra's own warriors to shy away from open spaces. He resolved to destroy them much as he had all other opposition, and led ten thousand warriors out into the wastes in a brazen challenge. For three days they journeyed, marching with grim purpose. Nearing the mountains where the creatures gathered, they were set upon, and for all the Architects' brutality and Raktra's might, the Angels fought in ways that few could withstand. With talons, beaks and gouts of unnatural flame, they ravaged the White Devil’s horde for hours. With his army teetering on the verge of annihilation, Raktra was forced to withdraw. He himself was severely wounded, his jaw so badly mangled that even with his physiology, it would not heal cleanly. The White Devil knew defeat, and this sent shockwaves through Uran. Raktra was denounced as a false prophet by men eager to exploit the situation. Conflict blossomed, the old gangs emerging along with new factions as the Architects' empire splintered. Blood ran through every city, every district, every street. But Raktra was not so easily thrown aside, and over two decades he purged Uran of all the recalcitrants. When he broke the final warlord who stood against him, he revealed that he had let matters escalate so. Conflict bred strength, and he would expunge such weakness as had cost him the battle in the mountains. In his eyes, the war was nothing more than two generations of accelerated natural selection. From the remainder he would build his army, letting the gangs war for his notice. Those who excelled in the struggle were rewarded with forges, archeotech and other weapons to use against their brethren. Finally Raktra gave the word, and the fighting ceased. Forges were turned towards the purpose of the Ashen King, and his arsenal augmented with archeotech found in the furthest-reaching tunnels. Nearly twenty-five Terran years after the disaster in the mountains, Raktra set out with a far larger army at his back, and a cadre of warriors dedicated to his protection. With a colossal length of chain he swatted Angels from the sky, and in his right hand he bore a massive chainblade. This time, no Angel could resist him, and though his dead outnumbered the entire army he had brought before, they were relentless. Over four days and three nights, they scoured the mountains, using aircraft taken from the hives to attack the Angels when they flew out of reach. Eventually, all that remained was feathers and ichor, and Raktra ordered the entire range to be bathed in fire. Finally, the Angels who had blighted Uran were purged. 'Ashen and Bloody' When the Emperor found Raktra it was as a grim deliverer, an apex predator who only now recognised a being whose strength he could no match. For the first time, Raktra beheld an individual in whom he could discern no weakness, and whose power utterly eclipsed his own. Perhaps more pertinently, he learned that there was a way to elevate his forces far beyond their present might, and heights of power that before had been out of reach. Yet when he was told of the “sons” who already fought in the Emperor’s Crusade, he felt only disgust. They represented everything Uran had taught him to despise: the protection of the weak, mercy as a virtue that overrode the urge to a crushing victory. This would not stand. Raktra, disdaining the Legion depicted in the campaign logs, resolved to delay taking charge of them. For a time he fought beside the Emperor and then Yucahu, and precious little was known of him; a warrior in black and ashen white, possessed of astonishing speed and ferocity. The exact identity of this figure was obscured, and the Shepherds of Eden remained ignorant that their gene-sire had been found. Meanwhile, in facilities built in Uran's orbit, a cadre of Astartes were being formed into the first of what was arguably an entirely new Legion: the Berserkers of Uran. When Raktra finally revealed himself to his sons, he did so with ten thousand Legionaries drawn from Uran and other worlds whose sons he deemed suitable. Finding the Dusk Blades Chapter of the Shepherds besieging the world of Kerunnos, he ordered an immediate bombardment of the capital city followed by a drop-pod assault. The Shepherds were taught, as bluntly as possible, that Raktra cared naught for their methods or creed. The VIIth Legion changed vastly in appearance, bone-white replaced by charred black and ashen white on their arms. This highlighted the gore of battle, and soon the VIIth were nicknamed the “bloody handed”. Many younger Shepherds caved in to the impulse to emulate their father, and those who did not found their numbers dwindling, their Chapters and companies consolidated into ever fewer formations. Raktra retained the old tithe rights to Cthonia’s stock, and the old runes and glyphs took on a more savage appearance, closer to how they were inscribed by the gangs of that world. Tithes were imposed on other prison-worlds, but none were allowed to rival the primacy of Uran. Several times, Raktra demanded fresh influxes of stock from newly conquered worlds or existing prison colonies. In the sectors around Uran, the death penalty for rioting or inveterate disobedience was replaced with transportation to the Ashen Kingdom, as it became known. Fresh blood was rapidly subsumed into the population, and the weak eradicated. No gang or clan, transplanted from elsewhere, retained its own identity for long. Uran's influence could be seen in the very bodies of the Legionaries it produced. Scarification was commonplace, and at the end of every battle the Berserkers made pyres of their fallen foes, wearing the ash in imitation of their master. One of the most visible changes was the absence of true jump infantry in their ranks, a product of Raktra's formative years. Despising the idea of his warriors resembling the “angels” he had cast down, he forbade the use of jump packs. To combat this deficiency, thruster pods were designed by the Magos under his command, less powerful but cheaper and easier to manufacture. The devices became widespread among the Berserkers, allowing them to move in large numbers at a speed which beggared belief. The new VIIth rose rapidly, and with this strength came a reputation for atrocity that went beyond any of their fellow Legions. On Punicia, Raktra razed a continental capital in defiance of Pionus' strategy for conquest, and the Berserkers nearly came to blows with the Scions Hospitalier in the ruins. Around this time Raktra and Niklaas had indeed fought, although little is known about the incident. In other theatres, Army regiments swiftly learned that the Legion cared nothing for any allied mortals caught in the path of their offensives. The very concept of collateral damage seemed foreign to Raktra; worse, it emerged that he actively despised the notion. The Somoptis became known as the Cutter's Sight among the Berserkers, and it seems to have become bound up with their hatred of weakness. Infirmity was laid bare to them, and it was their task to excise it. In a matter of years, an approaching VIIth Legion fleet had become cause for panic among their own allies. Indeed, during the Inwit campaign a mere decade later, something unprecedented occurred. The rift within the VIIth became a fissure, a full 20,000 of the old Shepherds breaking away. Giving the Primarch's conduct as their reason, the trigger-point seems to have been a dispute between Raktra and one Captain Khârn, though the exact cause went unspoken of. To Raktra's fury, his errant sons petitioned the Halcyon Wardens and Iron Bears for support, and got it. The Scions Hospitalier and Crimson Lions too closed ranks in defence of the Shepherds of Eden, who were granted autonomy from their Primarch. Such a thing had never been heard of, and Raktra could only console himself that any compassion was gone from the forces under his command. The Berserkers would ram this message home in the subsequent years, and thus the image was cemented of a Legion teetering on the brink of censure. Yet they had undeniable utility to the Great Crusade. The Imperial advance was barred by a thousand alien and mutant empires which only warranted eradication, and the Berserkers excelled in this. Never were they needed more than when the Rangdan incursions swept the Imperium's northern frontier. Hundreds of worlds burned, with entire Titan Legions, Army regiments and Legiones Astartes REDACTED wiped out, yet the Berserkers emerged all the stronger. Raktra and his "true sons" gloried in the carnage, and what they saw as the truth of the Galaxy. They took the remnants of broken formations, those who now found nothing to comfort them when faced with the savagery of the Galaxy, and made fanatical allies of them. Most notorious of these were the Knights of House Lorthryk who, plucked from the brink of extinction during the Rangdan Xenocides, became pitiless and fanatical killers in the Ashen King's service. By this time, the Berserkers' bleak worldview had become entrenched throughout the Legion, and spread to their auxiliaries. They did not want for Mechanicum allies - indeed the Legio Yharma was essentially raised for them - but their unremitting viciousness and unforgiving treatment of mortals ensured that precious few Army commanders would serve beside them unless by order. Allied taghmata could only compensate so much for sheer numbers, and so penal regiments and companies which had disgraced themselves were assigned to the Berserkers’ fleets. Where necessary, death worlders and underhive gangers were used to reinforce their numbers. The death toll was staggering, but those who survived were forged into some of the most deadly mortal troops in the Imperium. However, the Berserkers had few friends, and several of Raktra's brothers remained outright hostile to him. While they had worked discreetly to steer the Berserkers away from human worlds, once Alexandros became Warmaster this became much more overt. Raktra met this with the same disgust he showed for his brother's elevation, seething that the Emperor had handed power to a weakling Primarch. Worse was to come, as the Vizenko Prosecution convinced Raktra that the cancer of weakness had infested the Imperium utterly, and the Chaplain Order was extended to the VIIth Legion for the first time since the Shepherds had broken away. With this development it might be suggested that Raktra was waiting for an opportunity to rebel. When Icarion made his offer it was quickly accepted, but once the leash was slipped, the Berserkers would become the most volatile force at his command. 'Vizenko Prosecution' 'Day of Revelation' 'Return to Uran' 'The Old Blood' 'Joining the Insurrection' 'The Blood Crusade' 'Assault on Terra' 'Aftermath' Legion Organisation and Structure Raktra stripped out the structural preferences of the Shepherds from his Legion with ruthless efficiency, just as he did their ethos. He only deigned to preserve a few characteristics, and these became a distorted mirror of the VIIth that had been. Raktra favoured overwhelming force, applied at close range, above all other considerations. Melee weapons were ubiquitous, an old custom of the Shepherds, but now many of these had their roots in ganger weaponry. Most iconic were the paired knives known as Hell’s Teeth. Assault squads became less distinguishable from their comrades, lacking as they did jump packs, but their armaments became more common among the VIIth along with the 'despoiler' variant of tactical squads. More ominously, destroyer squads appeared in much greater numbers; the Berserkers' abilities enabled them to identify any severe deterioration in a warrior early on and either treat it or transfer the warrior elsewhere. These were cross-pollinated with heavy support units, augmenting their already monstrous arsenals. 'Command Hierarchy' The Berserkers were a Legion in which power was exercised with little, if any restraint, and this was as true of its command as anywhere else. Raktra was a tyrant, yet held in near-religious awe by those he commanded. Below him was an echelon known within the Legion as the Gohlurak - the Overlords. The honorific applied to the masters of the Forge, Apothecarion, Librarius and the elite Milewalkers, but most of its membership were in effect the Legion praetorate. Each Overlord ruled his Horde with an unyielding grip, and asserted certain preferences, although the emphasis on aggression and disdain for mercy was a constant. Chaplains stood apart, however, indoctrinated on Terra itself at the end of their training. They were obeyed, but only grudgingly, for while they were still immersed in the savagery of their Legion, they were relentless in ensuring that their brothers observed the Edict of Baal. To many Berserkers, they represented the meddling hand of Alexandros, and it is unlikely that any resisted when Raktra demanded the heads of the Chaplains. Favour and punishment were for an officer to hand out as he saw fit to any warrior under his command. This took on a peculiar aspect which bordered on superstition and cult practices to some observers. Whether it arose with Raktra or his sons, the Berserkers came to see their debt to their gene-sire as a literal one that might be called should a warrior be revealed as unworthy. For this reason Dreadnoughts were revered above almost any living Berserker, having proven themselves worthy to be dragged back from the brink of death and continue carving their bloody path across the Galaxy. 'Specialist Formations' The Blood Boilers Everything ends. That is the motto of the Blood Boilers, a brotherhood that exemplifies the very darkest aspects of the Imperial war machine. Formed of the Destroyer cadres of the Berserkers of Uran, the Blood Boilers were often seen as the Emperor’s final solution to a non-compliant world, mixing the disturbing effects of rad and phosphex weaponry with the even more disturbing battlefield habits of the White Devil’s sons. In most Legions, the deployment of Destroyer cadres is a carefully considered and rarely-employed tactic. The destruction they wreak upon the environment, the toll it takes on the bodies of the Marines in their ranks, and not least of all the psychological effect on the lost cultures of man the Crusade attempts to bring back into its fold, are all incredible costs to consider. Mankind needs the soil to thrive, the Legions need their fighters well, and the Imperium needs its citizens to believe that they are better off back under its rule, for if they do not, what then is the Crusade for? None of this matters to the Berserkers of Uran, for they only truly care about one thing - survival of the fittest. To them, the sheer ruination brought by a Destroyer assault is something almost perversely satisfying, for it proves their strength above all else around them. The land is too soft to contain them, other Astartes are too weak to emulate them, and the lesser mortals are too cowardly to stand before them. 'Desolator-class Dreadnoughts' 'Milewalker Cadres' While most of the primarchs fight accompanied by a retinue of Terminators, Raktra's sheer speed on the battlefield necessitated a much faster group of bodyguards. Indeed this was something the White Devil himself had realised long before being found by the Emperor. On Uran, he had recruited prisoners condemned to execution or conversion into a servitor, forming them into a shock-attack force of terrifying speed and aggression for his battles against the “angels” and the civilian rulers of Uran. Over time, he came to appreciate their devotion towards their saviour even as he began to understand that he was not invincible, and refashioned them into a unit which could guard his flanks in battle. As a private joke, he named them the Milewalkers. They had once been fated to walk a mile-long corridor to their execution or conversion. Now, he noted with bleak humour, they walked a bloody path to their eventual doom, just as every Berserker would die to pay his “debt” to the White Devil. However, the Milewalkers seemed not to care or even heed the irony. To allow them to keep up with him, he outfitted them with jet-thrusters akin to his own. For weapons, each carried a pair of shivs which became known as Hell's Teeth. These armaments exist in a more refined form in the modern Milewalkers, along with the best power armour given to the VIIth Legion. Individual Milewalkers round out their arsenal with bolt-pistols and larger melee weapons. The leader of the Milewalkers is the infamous Dominator Dorran Kldier, who has served Raktra since his days on Uran and earned a macabre reputation of his own as the "Black Hood". Under his command, they are reckoned among the most deadly assault marines in the Legiones Astartes. 'Wretches' 'The Architects' War Disposition Despite poor relations with so many of their peers, the Berserkers were numerous and well-supplied even before the Insurrection began. Their strength stood at 140,000, supported by their vicious Army regiments and even a number of Solar Auxilia cohorts modeled on the Cthonian Head-Hunters. Their fleet included around 80 capital vessels, many salvaged or seized from human cultures which had resisted the Legion. These acquisitions continued through the early Insurrection, bolstered by the entirety of Icarion's domain being placed on a war footing, and despite their losses the Berserkers came to the gates of Mycenae with 20,000 more Astartes than they had begun the war with. The Berserkers' ties to the Mechanicum, secured by Raktra allowing them use of Uran's natural resources and archeotech, afforded them a plethora of war machines. The most prominent and most infamous were the Legio Cruciatus, raised from the ancient Legio Mortis and steeped in the cruel ways of the Astartes they fought beside. Raktra gladly sanctioned the more extreme experiments pursued by the tech-priests under his command, and such horrors as Ogryn Charonites were added to the VIIth's arsenal. However, in the matter of automata, Raktra's strange preferences asserted themselves. While he would accept those whose organic components were vat-grown, he disdained those created from slaves or criminals, deeming them failures worthy only to function as menials or be rendered down and processed. Consequently the Berserkers possessed large numbers of such machine-thralls, adding to the paucity of mortals who served them in a non-combat capacity. Records do attest to a few fanatical soldiers who, crippled by battle or the effects of achem-weapons, demanded the honour of a second life killing for the Ashen King and had it granted. Besides demonstrating the surprising degree of loyalty which Raktra secured from some of his followers, this is likely a reflection of the extremely high esteem in which the Legion held its Dreadnoughts. That reverence ensured that these revenant warriors enjoyed an exceptional amount of attention from the armourers. Some Mechanicum Adepts attached to other forces noted with distaste that the Berserkers equipped their Dreadnoughts with esoteric weapons such as graviton hammers and arc scourges, which were normally the preserve of automata. The Berserkers would never countenance being divided further than their seven Hordes, and through this the Legion ensured that its material needs were consistently met. It also served their practice of deploying en masse, overwhelming an enemy in the opening hours or even minutes of a battle’s start. To this end a disproportionate number of their vehicles were transports, serving to deliver the Berserkers to the epicentre of any battle. Raktra especially favoured the Spartan for its heavy armour and punishing weapons. Their complement of aerial vehicles were specialised along different lines; Raktra disliked the use of aerial transports and instead the Berserkers’ forges toiled mostly to produce fighter and bomber craft, with Fire Raptors actually outnumbering the regular Storm Eagles in their service. The most common transport was the Caestus Assault Ram, chosen for its speed and durability. Otherwise, the Berserkers optimised their war machines mainly to counter those of the enemy, reckoning themselves to be answer enough for any infantry. To this end they favoured such tanks as the Cerberus and Shadowsword, as well as the Knights and Titans who fought with them. Those machines assigned to the Charred Host of Overlord Innorvak were modified to wield alchem-weapons when it served the Berserkers' purposes, the Blood Boiler treating his auxiliaries as an extension of his malignant will. Notable Campaigns The Berserkers' campaign records testify to a Legion reborn as a force for absolute destruction, one that while unpalatable to the propagandists and citizenry, was nonetheless a key part of the Great Crusade. They were a double-edged sword - guaranteed to eradicate even the vilest xenos empire, but liable to crush human civilisations which merely required pacification. Raktra's murderous spirit led to confrontation with several of his brothers, and many took this as a signal that he saw the Emperor as his only true master. Time would make a cruel mockery of those beliefs, and the tally of conquest a mere prelude to the atrocities the Berserkers would wreak. The Siege of Kernunnos Raktra unveiled himself and the "new Seventh" to his erstwhile sons on Kernunnos. Their arrival was announced in the simplest of ways, and their nature in a way that was utterly uncompromising. With a drop-assault against the world's capital, the Berserkers set about the wholesale slaughter of the defenders. 'The Vilja Cleansing' When an expeditionary fleet of the Steel Legion discovered a Hrud infestation in the Vilja Strait, they concluded that nothing less than extermination was in order and petitioned the Berserkers of Uran for aid. Once their request was acknowledged they garrisoned nearby Imperial worlds, knowing that the VIIth Legion had no inclination to set up defences of their own. For two months they led the Imperial response, containing the xenos, but at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Imperial lives as Army troopers aged to death in the presence of the Hrud. Then the Berserkers arrived, some 40,000 Astartes led by their Primarch. Raktra Akarro elected for a strategy which was simple and brutal, but highly effective. First, he deployed penal regiments to several densely populated Hrud worlds, which the Imperium would want to conquer relatively intact. Set down with little in the way of artillery or vehicular support, the mortal troops were used to draw the xenos out into the open, where a combination of orbital bombardment and drop-strikes by the Berserkers devastated their ramshackle armies. The White Devil was well aware of the danger the entropic fields of the Hrud posed, and was pursuing a strategy that would incur minimal losses to his Legion. Apart from potential casualties, temporal distortion threatened to cause severe losses to the Legion's wargear, to say nothing of gene-seed rotted and dessicated past usefulness. Mortal losses he would accept without a second thought, but he guarded his Legion's power jealously. Thus, as the strategy took shape, he orchestrated a grand trap for the aliens. On planets deemed unviable for human colonisation, he unleashed the Blood Boilers with sanction to use every weapon in their terrible arsenal. The results were horrifying, even to Imperial commanders who had spent decades waging war against the alien. Led by Riktus Innorvak, the Blood Boilers unleashed alchemical and nuclear scourges on the Hrud, inflicting damage vastly disproportionate to their numbers. The Legio Cruciatus walked with them, their weapons modified to wield the same alchem-weapons. The Hrud, lacking anything like the Eldar Wraithkind or Ork Gargants, had no answer for such monstrous power. The Hrud fled across several systems with the Berserkers in pursuit. This was the most dangerous part of the operation, and several vessels were lost to the ravages of the entropic fields during void engagements, their hulls corroding and collapsing even as they fought. However, led by the flagship Hooded Guillotine, the VIIth successfully hounded the vast majority of the Hrud into a single system, the Steel Legion and Army vessels helping to herd them where the Primarch demanded. With the prey run to ground, Raktra ordered the largest planet to be destroyed completely. Hardly bothering to engage the enemy fleet, the Berserkers' vessels bombarded the planet with murderous precision, boring straight to the core. The world simply collapsed under the onslaught, the cataclysm swallowing up most of the Hrud fleet as the rest scattered. After two years of bloodshed, it only took a month to eradicate the survivors. The Legion won a rare degree of acclaim for the campaign, for Raktra had completed it with remarkably little loss of materiel and even life. Even those who detested the White Devil were forced to admit that it was an astoundingly thorough victory, if not one that anyone would call 'clean'. The Fourth Rangdan Xenocide The Berserkers were called upon when the dreadful power of the Rangdan emerged for the final time, fighting many battles of awful magnitude and purging the xenos wherever they were found. During this time they gained the allegiance of the Knights of House Lorthryk and cemented their reputation as necessary monsters. Raktra was known afterwards as perhaps the most feared of the Imperium's "Four Horsemen". 'The Hermeka Compliance' The conquest of Hermeka has gone down in the annals of the Great Crusade as one that illustrated both the unique talents of the VIIth and the drawbacks of their savage nature. It began as a joint expedition by the Berserkers and the Godslayers, which scoured several worlds of their xenos occupiers until it came across a human civilisation. At this point, the differing ethos of the two Legions surfaced. The Hermeka System lay under the aegis of the Knight House Achaea, which had gradually come to govern the entire system after losing touch with the tech-priests of Mars. They agreed to hold talks on the system’s fourth planet, but balked at Raktra's blunt demands for submission. Koschei Kharkovic attempted to salvage the situation, but the situation degenerated too quickly and within minutes war was declared. The Godslayers’ primarch lamented this turn of events and prepared to return to orbit, but Raktra ordered him to wait. Seconds later, several squads of Milewalkers and Blood Boilers teleported into the courtrooms where negotiations had taken place. Raktra had made contingency plans for the failure of diplomacy in his inimitable way, knowing that the majority of the system's political and military leaders would be gathered in one place. Having been instructed beforehand, they slaughtered every man and woman present. Koschei was appalled, but the momentum and initiative clearly lay with Raktra and the Godslayers were dragged along in his wake as the Imperial forces seized the capital. The fighting was brutal, as Achaea, led by the High King's son Aeneas, quickly rallied their forces in the city, but the Berserkers landed troops both within and outside the walls. Caught off guard and outnumbered, the defenders were massacred. Raktra led the battle against their Knight Walkers, personally destroying the iSwift Arrow/i and killing Baron Aeneas. The Godslayers participated, recognising an irretrievable situation, but were largely sidelined amid the carnage. Raktra's next move was to position ships above every other major city, damping communications in the capital. After leaving the populace to stew in their confusion and fear for a day, Godslayer and Berserker forces deployed to each settlement, demanding they surrender. Those that resisted were crushed underfoot by the invaders, the Godslayers reluctantly going along with Raktra's scheme while the Hermekan fleet was scattered by Army warships. Koschei set off for the remaining worlds. Finding that their leaders would not negotiate with him, he broadcast images of the carnage to them. Some historians draw parallels with Pionus' actions on Punicia, but unlike his brother, Koschei was unable to set aside his emotions, pleading with the Hermekans to surrender and avoid adding to the carnage that had befallen their capital. To his relief, they did so, shaken by the distress of this mighty warrior. However, his elation was dashed when Raktra congratulated him for his “help.” Koschei realised that he had been manipulated every step of the way, Raktra using him to ensure clean compliances across the rest of the system. No record exists of Koschei's response, but rumours suggest that he actually struck Raktra in his fury. Whatever the truth, the Berserkers departed soon after. The Godslayers did the best they could to ease the Hermekan people into the Imperium, but it was decades until the planet would know true compliance. Moreover, relations between the two Legions were in ruins, and it would take a very dark turn in the Godslayers’ path to set them beside the Berserkers again. 'The Targhurun War' The Berserkers have cemented their monstrous aspect so deeply in the Imperial memory that we must consider the foes they faced in the Crusade. Just as Raktra was cast as a dread liberator by the savage ordeals besetting Uran, the necessary evil that was his Legion routinely took arms against the worst foes of Mankind. The Targhurun of the Zirig Depths were a nomadic society, sustaining themselves by piracy until, quite by chance, they found an Explorator Fleet, severely damaged by an asteroid barrage. The resulting plunder they combined with gene-tampering, and became a singularly vicious force. As the Warp storms of Old Night dissipated, they embarked on a expansion which, while it never rivalled the Qarith, was characterised by rapacity rarely seen outside the conquests of greenskins. Xenos and humans they enslaved; the latter for slave labour and breeding stock, the former for psycho-conditioning that would turn them into berserk line-breakers and cannon-fodder. Their chattels were bound to them not only through violence, but by a combination of fervent religion and a perversion of gene-science. The Targhurun used pheromones to engineer obedience in their slaves, breeding fanatical armies. By 980 M30 they controlled a dozen systems beneath the galactic plane. The first Imperial element to encounter them was a Rogue Trader fleet, following the path of another Explorator flotilla. Finding the Forge World Throrum, initial messages were only just being exchanged when an armada of Targhurun burst into the system. The Rogue Trader was driven to flight with heavy losses, leaving many of its mercenary bands to hold the world alongside the Skitarii and Titans of Throrum. All told, three expeditionary fleets, including elements of the Halcyon Wardens and Iron Bears, locked horns with the xenos across four systems. This proved enough to halt the Targhurun, but not to seize and hold the systems in question. This inertia was unacceptable, even when the cost was considered. Worse, reconnaissance missions revealed the Targhurun were rapidly assembling a still larger army. This would not only be enough to tip the balance in the current theatre, but threaten the flanks of the Imperial advance in other regions. When word reached the Emperor, His advisors suggested deploying Legion detachments from half a dozen other fleets. The Master of Mankind overruled them and ordered “No half measures. Deploy the Seventh.” When the Berserkers arrived, they bypassed the current battlefront. A third of the Legion broke realspace in the system where the second Targhurun armada was massing, bulk transports still waiting for most of the horde to embark. Preceding them was a small fleet of Dune Serpents, the already notorious 'Viper Fangs'. Timur Leng, their commander, ordered his battleships to approach on minimal power, sending escorts and system-runners ahead. These briefly engaged the enemy vessels before fleeing to a point on the edge of the system, above the solar plane. Here a force of strike cruisers awaited, but the Targhurun saw a decoy in their presence. More ships had translated at the Mandeville point, with every appearance of mining it to prevent reinforcements joining the attack on the Imperials. The Taeghurun responded quickly, little realising the ruse concealed by these manoeuvres as they came within range of the Serpents. Abruptly realspace was torn open, and the Berserkers of Uran thundered into the system. The Targhurun fleet, despite falling into a well-coordinated fighting retreat, was cast into disorder within the hour. Raktra pressed on without a backward glance once boarders were away, and the staging-world became the grave of its army. Debased as the foe were, they remained human, possessing technology from Mankind’s half-remembered zenith. Massed bombardment would not suffice. Raktra, of course, had anticipated this. At five closely located points across the planet’s northern hemisphere, they bombarded from orbit before drop-pods carried the first waves to the surface, along with Warhound and Reaver Titans of the Legio Yharma. These were the Blackening Scourge and Angel Rippers, each capable of subjugating whole systems. At each landing site they swiftly met Taghurun forces and beat them back, more than matching their disciplined savagery. Reinforcements joined them as they advanced, and the invasion took on the form of a rippling tide. Land Raiders and Rhino transports formed great columns, joined by Predators and Whirlwinds. As one wave halted to regroup and repair, another surged past in bulk landers and gunships. Drop-pod attacks and bomber raids demolished silos, water supplies and communications networks. Only one channel was left to the enemy - Astropaths, or whatever mutants served the same purpose for the Targhurun. With his fleet in place, Raktra cared little that reinforcements might find them here. He wanted the forces assaulting the region around Throrium to know what was happening behind their lines, and to sow fear throughout their domain. Army tank columns raced to keep up, and the Berserkers' mortal auxiliaries ensured nothing survived in their wake. More and larger Titans strode the surface, breaking fortifications and armour formations with little effort. Terminators and Dreadnoughts ploughed into the ranks of their enemies and led the storming of strongholds. The Berserkers' prolific use of small thruster-pods came into its own; while not as potent as true jump packs, their wide availability gave the bulk of the Legion terrifying mobility. Raktra was ever at the front, a figure of terror even among such deranged foes, and though alien beasts were sent to kill him on dozens of occasions, none came close to succeeding. At his side fought the Milewalkers, and companies of assault marines came behind. The sheer numbers of the enemy became a weapon for Raktra to use, as food supplies ran low and swiftly led to disorder and cannibalism. The Serpents fed this, adding vile poisons to water and food supplies. Within three weeks, an army whose strength was estimated at a hundred and thirty million had been whittled down to just two million. The Targhurun warlords unveiled a Titan maniple of their own, bastardised variants of Warhounds and Reavers, gathering their remaining soldiers and arming their thralls as they went to meet the Berserkers. Now the Blackening Scourge, the Blood Boilers at their head, came to the fore, and the results of the experiments done at Raktra's bidding were unveiled. The pheromones engineered by the Targhurun scientists had yielded a grisly discovery; with the application of certain poisons, the victim's body chemistry would react so violently as to burn them out from the inside. By the time the Berserkers reached the last line of resistance, the reactants had been distilled into a variety of forms, deployed by chem-flamer, missile, grenade and bolt-round. The Blackening Scourge modified their tanks and allied Titans to make use of Destroyer weapons, but even so it was an uncommon number of Land Raiders and Predators that rumbled through the night, lit by the noisome glow of their weapons and wreathed in smog. With the Ashen King leading his sons, it was the work of a single night. Raktra saw that the enemy Titans were equipped primarily to destroy vehicles and buildings. Therefore he ordered his own war machines to avoid engaging them, despite the objections of the Legio Yharma. Titans were always valuable war spoil, and he spied an opportunity break the enemy's resolve entirely. As the enemy Titans closed, Raktra led a force of Berserkers and Serpents ten thousand strong directly for them. Spreading themselves thinly, they pushed their thruster pods to their limits, leaping tanks, crashing through infantry and leaving gas and phosphex grenades in their wake. Several hundred fell to tank fire and the Titan's dread weapons, but they moved too fast for the enemy to do any more, and the tactical and devastator squads who followed made ruin of surviving tanks and troops. Reaching the Titans, Raktra's warriors set about the legs of the great machines, dragging them down to breach their cabins or leaping up to batter open access hatches. Raktra, with fiendish audacity, leapt straight for the head of the commanding Reaver. With his Grinder chainblade, he cut his way into the cockpit, followed by his bodyguard, and reaved through his trapped prey. The last Titans fell silent, and the Astartes marched pitilessly beneath them, massacring the Targhurun and their conscripts. When dawn rose, it revealed a necropolis, peopled by twisted statues, eye sockets and mouths still glowing. Few mortals, even days later, managed to look at them without their stomachs violently rebelling, and no artist had the stomach to so much as sketch the charnel scene. Raktra regarded the battle as a test of the new weapon, now approved for use in this theatre as a matter of course. The Targhurun advance had collapsed, and with the bulk of their armies destroyed, the best they would be able to achieve was to die slowly. With this singular atrocity, the old nomadic instinct for survival prevailed, and the Targhurun evacuated all they could and made to flee, only to be cornered by the Berserkers and Serpents. The Targhurun sued for peace at any price. Raktra slew the emissary, before boarding the flagship and gutting the commander. He was a man who exacted submission, he explained, and would not take it when it was merely offered. Their slaves had cowered in terror rather than rejoice on every world, and this Raktra deemed only proper. Too weak to rise up against their oppressors even when the Berserkers were dismantling the Targhurun military, the only mercy they could expect was to keep slaving away as before. Chattel xenos were purged as a matter of course, and the Targhurun who surrendered were given an ultimatum that, according to the savage creed of Uran, was a rare honour. Raktra, where other Primarchs would have reviled them, saw a culture he could respect and use. Too wily and strong to be trusted as vassal rulers, they would either die or be absorbed into the Ashen King’s mortal armies, buying his clemency with the promise of dying in his name. The strongest of their children would be accorded an even higher honour; they would be given a measure of Raktra’s own might, and carve bloody swathes across the Galaxy to prove themselves worthy of that gift. Before departing, the Ashen King gave but one command to those who came behind him. The nightmarish tableau left by the final battles must remain undisturbed: "Here," the Ashen King declared, "men will see the truth of the universe writ in stone." The Battle of Kartyg Having massacred the population of Kartyg, the Berserkers laid and sprang an ambush upon the Crimson Lions. They inflicted grave losses upon the III Legion and their allies, but Hectarion Mycenor extricated most of his fleet from the trap. Raktra personally slew Rix Thegnir Hralssen, whose ship had covered the Lions' escape. The Ravaging of Tuleon The Berserkers announced their entry into the Wars of Expansion with their assault on Tuleon, slaughtering a company of Halcyon Wardens along with the millions of soldiers and civilians on that world. The Torment of Aureus Raktra unleashed the Berserkers of Uran against the Auretian Technocracy, defended by his erstwhile sons the Shepherds of Eden. Atrocities, inflicted with all the unfettered power of the VIIth Legion, scoured entire worlds of life until, in an agonising siege, Aureus itself fell to the blades of the Berserkers. The riches of the Technocracy were claimed for the Stormlord’s Mechanicum allies, and the Scions Hospitalier forces were powerless to do anything but retrieve the handful of survivors. Captain Khârn of the Shepherds, sought out by the agents of Malcador the Sigillite, found himself bound to a new path. Only one fleet of Shepherds, led by Daegar Vyrn, were left to bear the banner of the old VIIth. 'Legion Gene-Seed' 'Legion Beliefs' 'Legion Combat Doctrine' 'Notable Bersekers of Uran' 'Legion Fleet' * Hooded Guillotine'' (Gloriana-class)' - one of the most brutal warships in the Imperium's service, the ''Hooded Guillotine held an arsenal of frightful alchem-weapons along with its more conventional armament and was known to have destroyed entire biospheres alone. 'Legion Relics' *'''''Ashes of Gormus - These ashes are unlike any relic, for they are made from the burnt flesh of a Bloodthirster, a Greater Daemon of Khorne, known only as Gormus. This foul entity was destroyed prior to the legion's fall to Chaos. Why it's material form was not drawn back to the warp, nobody knows, save perhaps the Emperor and the Blood God. 'Legion Appearance' 'Legion Colours' 'Legion Badge' 'Notable Quotes' Feel free to add your own 'By the Bersekers of Uran' Feel free to add your own 'About the Berserkers of Uran' ''Gallery'' Berserkers of Uran Color.png|Bersekers of Uran Legion iconography Berserker of Uran.png|Bersekers of Uran Legion appearance Notes * Uran is established as a human world in the Ghoul Stars * World is eventually deemed unfit for habitation, however the sheer amount of materiel dedicated to trying to colonise the world is deemed an unacceptable loss * The half-completed hab-blocks are converted into mass holding cells for the system’s worst criminal elements, turning the world into a global penitentiary * First incidences of angelic (daemonic) activity * Angel activity increases, grounding all aircraft * Due to the threat of the Angels on the surface, tunnel systems are installed to avoid having to traverse outside * Entire world’s surface develops into an interconnected complex, virtually erasing outside transport * Galaxy-wide warp storms cut off Uran * World goes to complete lockdown with increase of angel attacks, no access to the other worlds of the Ghoul Stars for guards, inmates or other staff * The Eye of Terror is created, clearing the warp storms * Arrival of Raktra’s pod destroys an enormous section of the prison, both allowing inmates to run riot, and opening an enormous area to the daemon-filled skies, who then swarm in * Raktra breaks free from his pod. It is one standard Terran year before he is seen by human eyes * In this time, the massive influx of inmates fleeing into secured/civilian sectors overwhelms the guards left, causing a domino effect releasing more prisoners form their cells * Raktra makes his way into the complexes, carving his own foothold * The planet devolves into a global turf war * Raktra’s forces gain superiority and begin to both conquer the underground, and make plans to retake the surface * Surface campaign begins, lasting for close to five years * Arrival of the Emperor Category:Legions Category:Insurrectionist Category:Berserkers of Uran